Anyone But You
by MiaGhost
Summary: (S4 SPOILERS)Sherlock has always been proud of his emotional isolation. His brother has always needled him about the influence of the Watsons but he's always denied it.Until now that Mary is gone and John wants nothing to do with him, and Rosie? Sherlock misses her and can't quite make himself stop. John is the dagger in Sherlock's chest that try as he might he cannot dislodge.
1. Chapter 1

_Not the Same_

Sherlock listened to the words as they tread heavily through each corridor of his Mind Palace.

Molly's words.

 _John's_ words.

He lay on the cluttered couch in the living room of 221b, his eyes gazing unseeingly up at the ceiling they had worn paths across so many times before. He admitted to himself that he wanted to ignore the psychiatrist's unhelpful words. He didn't want to talk about _feelings_ with a stranger. He barely managed to broach subjects like that with John, with Mycroft. Even admitting to Mary simple things like noticing things were less preferable when she'd been away for a weekend was difficult. Bringing Rosie into it - and how could one not, considering who she was? - only confused things further.

 _"Anyone but you._ "

But there was no denying to himself, not this time, how cold and aching the words felt in his abdomen. It was stupid of people to think of feelings making their heart hurt when hearts were in no way connected to any of the emotional pathways in the brain.

And yet now Sherlock could understand what they meant when they said such things, because there was a tight and uncomfortable sensation in his ribcage that made his eyes prick.

The flat was too empty.

Too quiet.

Sherlock was unnerved to find himself lingering on those deductions, his ears listening for the trudge of those most familiar footsteps on the stairs which wouldn't come, the laughter in the kitchen of Mary stumbling across one of his experiments. The wail of their child, waking from a nap to be taken care of.

Sherlock missed it.

And more than that he _ached_ for it back. In a way he had not felt since he was very young, clutching the empty collar of a dog he would never see again and asking Mycroft - then just as he was now - why his dog had had to go.

He knew that this time it wasn't going to be the same, knew that the loss of John was much more than the loss of a dog. The loss of Mary greater still in the sense that even his intellect and all the favours he could cash would never be able to bring her back. When Father had died it had felt nothing like this, though the man had been part of Sherlock's life in one way or another since birth. His role as parent should have made him much more important to Sherlock, he knew from conversations with John, but in reality what loss he had felt then was pale and lifeless in comparison to the pain of John and Mary.

And the odd sensation that the flat was bereft without the squealing wail of Rosie.

She was with Molly, at least, and Sherlock knew Molly was a better choice than him. She knew lots about children, and liked them better, he could only assume. And she was a much warmer person than him. Rosie liked to be held and Molly liked to hold her. Logically, it made sense for John to give her the charge of his child while he took time to sort himself out over the loss of his wife. But it didn't stop a small part of Sherlock feeling… irritated that it had been Molly and not himself who had received the child.

After all, she had spent as many nights at 221b as her own home with her parents, perhaps more. And all the books John had half-heartedly thrust his way with little to no belief he'd read them - and he had, most of them - made a big deal about stability and familiar environments. 221b was certainly, logically speaking, more familiar to baby Rosie than Molly's flat.

He was pretty sure though, if he were to find some way to contact John and tell him that, that John would not be best pleased to hear it. He'd probably be quite the opposite, knowing John. And he'd likely cause Sherlock some physical injury into the bargain. Most likely by punching him.

And so Sherlock found himself lying there, on the living room couch in 221b Baker Street, contemplating the way in which the flat he'd come to unconsciously love so fiercely had become… tainted, changed, by the Watsons.

And how now it wasn't the same place without them, regardless of the fact that nothing had been removed but them.


	2. Chapter 2

_It Took a Week_

It took him a week to return.

Sherlock refused to admit even to himself that it had anything to do with Molly's conveying of John's rejection.

It didn't mean it wasn't true, only that he deigned not to accept that fact. If he didn't accept it then it wasn't true for _him_ , and then… Well, then Sherlock would change his track of thought because that was just idiotic.

And Sherlock Holmes wasn't an idiot.

"People are idiots." he had muttered out loud, already ready for the next line, that _fated_ next line.

But in order for him to say his next scripted line, there had to be another to say it first, and Sherlock closed his eyes as the knowledge struck him all over again that she wasn't there to do it. Not now, not in twenty minutes when she came back from the shops, not in three days when she came back from a weekend with the girls.

Not _ever_.

There would be none to play that game with now. No-one to shoot that look from her the side of her eyes, to raise one eyebrow and tell him how wrong he was.

 _"Most people."_

"Most people." he'd whispered to the empty living room, unable to comprehend that he could not make himself open his eyes to see that empty room.

Sherlock Holmes was a self-proclaimed clever man. A genius, if you would.

But he was coming to realise, in the most painful way, that there were going to be a lot of moments in his near future when he would feel like this. Not able to understand.

 _Incomprehensible_ had never been a word Sherlock Holmes thought he would ever utter, certainly not about himself, and he was uncomfortable at the astounding fact that he was, right then, unable to comprehend.

Human beings were science, _mathematics_ , he had always believed. Even the lowest IQ followed patterns. Patterns that to most eyes were not patterns at all but Sherlock saw, had _always_ seen.

But now?

Now there was no pattern. His own particular, well-kept, organised brain was travelling paths that wound and wove and disappeared and connected where they shouldn't and he was… _lost._

And every path that dead-ended did so right on the threshold of the wing of his Mind Palace he was most afraid to travel to now. Not Moriarty's dungeon, not the locked room Magnussen occupied. Not the lavish sitting rooms he had assigned to The Woman.

No, the wing that was a cottage, was a mansion of it's own, was an entity that lived and breathed in Sherlock's mind like it belonged there and ruled itself at the same time.

The part of his Palace which was not a palace at all but a home of its own.

The _Watson_ wing.

Sherlock stood before the steps again, again and again and again and he couldn't. He was taken there by the paths and halted by… by himself. He was afraid, in the way that Sherlock only allowed himself to be in his own head.

Because inside of those walls were the ones he was most afraid of, most unsure of. He would take a day in Moriarty's torture cell with him than face the journey through that worn, welcoming wooden door.

Sherlock had opened his eyes and taken a deep, unsettled breath.

And he had had to _move_.

So he stood outside of Molly's door, knowing Molly. Knowing what she was going to say, knowing what she was going to do. Knowing the moment he knocked that she knew it was him. And he knew she'd bring her with her, to step outside and tell him to go away. But he knew Molly, knew what she would do. He knew even the motives. Molly was, Sherlock so rarely said, special in a way that was unreplicatable. A _Molly_ sort of way, Mary would have said.

The door opened and she stepped through, closing the door to and looking at him with those sorrowful doe eyes.

"Sherlock." she said quietly.

"Molly." he said, not surprised at all to find his gaze would not stay on her when it could track the bundle in her arms.

"Rosalund." he said, hearing the regrettable quiver in his otherwise steady baritone. "Rosie."

Molly bit her lip, her fingers tightening just a fraction before she closed her eyes.

"Sherlock." she said agin, and he did not need to try to hear the cracking resolve in her voice.

 _You're not to see her._ she was saying, without ever opening her mouth. _He doesn't want you to see her._

 _He doesn't_ ** _want_** _you near her._

"I know." he told her, looking at her face, seeking those new lines, the sadness that weighed so heavily on her that it were like a suffocating blanket.

"I know." she answered, a breathy knowledge as she opened her eyes to meet his gaze.

She looked down at the baby in her arms, squeezing her tight before her eyes questioned Sherlock.

 _Do you want-_

"No." he said, taking one last, cataloguing look at the child of his friends.

"I'm sorry Sherlock." Molly whispered, holding Rosie close to her heart as she watched him turn and stride away, his coat billowing as always and yet somehow even _that_ was sad.

As though even Sherlock's coat knew it were lacking its usual follower, lacking that old, familiar admiring gaze.

The thought made Molly's tears fall as she slipped back into the flat to put Rosie down for her nap.


	3. Chapter 3

_That Familiar Sound_

It would have been another fortnight until he knocked upon that door again, Sherlock predicted.

Not because he had given himself a subconscious schedule, or because he couldn't last any longer. Nothing like that. Sherlock reasoned that it was a natural and sensible length of time. A pair of weeks, complete with all days present. A neat and tidy amount of time.

He wasn't even aware that he couldn't even fool himself.

So it was while fully expecting it to be a clean fortnight that Sherlock had thrown himself into another case, a meagre excuse for a puzzle pulled from Lestrade's cold cases in an obvious attempt to occupy him. Sherlock wasn't inept enough at social interaction to miss the sympathy in the Detective Inspector's eyes, and he found himself completing the case in hours and not returning to the Yard.

He had yet to speak to his brother again since the night of the Aquarium, but whereas no Yard meant a lamentable lack of new work, Sherlock viewed avoiding his overbearing older brother as a blessing.

That morning he'd sent Mrs Hudson scuttling away after twenty minutes of her fussing over him, doing so for her own benefit because he was growing irritated and the Sherlock Holmes of now-a-day preferred to send her off to save her from the worse snapping and vicious expelling of his vocabulary that would come after a further twenty minutes. Or god forbid an hour.

But Sherlock was feeling restless, and ten minutes after shooing her from the pile of papers and books and teaspoons and whatnot that she'd been tidying, the sight of it kept retuning to the corner of his eyes and driving him quite mad.

So with a despairing sigh he had rolled himself from his sprawl on the couch to cross the room and _deal_ with the infernal thing, a tower of mess that was no different from the others in the flat. Ones they had lived with every day, adding to and subtracting from as they saw fit. Sherlock halted his thought process from meandering towards the conclusion that his new-found irritation with this particular pile could be credited both to his annoyance at Mrs Hudson's suffocating sympathy and his own current state of mind.

Which was more erratic than he could truthfully say it usually was.

Sherlock lifted things haphazardly, deliberately, creating more chaos in the sea of chaos, tossing file folders and books into exceptionally untidy heaps depending on what he was going to do with them. Teaspoons clanged satisfyingly against the units in the kitchen when he tossed them towards the sink without really taking aim. A pile of Egyptian sand scattered over the floor and into the air, coating a zip-locked square of bloody carpet and tangling in a coil of Highland cow hair as Sherlock swept the whole lot out of his way with his sleeve.

He continued on like this for several minutes until a familiar sound stopped him cold.

A sound he wasn't expecting to hear. One he wasn't prepared to hear.

His gaze located the upturned, twisted-and-not-really-folded newspaper, locking on a prominent point and doing nothing else. If Sherlock were in the state of mind for metaphors and imagery he might have likened the sensation he was feeling right then to a suctioning of all the air in his vicinity. As it were, he was most decidedly _not_ in the frame of mind for such things, and so he did no such thing.

But the sound, now _that_ circled in his ears, long after the abrupt clatter had ended, and Sherlock did not move for several very long moments.

Sherlock took those long moments to convince himself to pick the damned newspaper up to collect the fallen item underneath. He couldn't say why he'd needed so long for a simple synapse firing of his movement.

The newspaper crinkled, loud in his hands even though he knew it wasn't loud at all. And underneath was the soft yellow fabric that should not have felt so significant but yet was anyway. Sherlock reached to retrieve it from the floor, feeling the sensory memory of it in his fingers. It made that familiar, mundane rattling noise again, the one that so fascinated Rosie.

Evening found Sherlock perched in John's chair, the rattle in his hands and a blank look on his face, a studious glaze in his eyes.

 _"It's her favourite," Mary argued, tucking her hair behind one ear and leaving a streak of flour across her cheek, "I think it could be the colour. Or maybe the fabric, it's the only soft one she has."_

 _John made an agreeing hum, reaching up from his seat at the dining table to rub his thumb across the crest of his wife's cheek, removing most of the flour. She thanked him with a peck to the top of his head before returning her attention to the batter she was mixing, John returning to his newspaper._

 _"Then she is no exceptional child." Sherlock murmured, half to Mary and half to Rosie herself as he handed back the rattle, "If she were, she would throw out the toys she didn't want, in a logical manner."_

 _"Sherlock," John broke in, eying his partner over the table with an exasperated tone in his voice, "babies aren't supposed to be logical. They're babies."_

 _Mary chuckled, setting down the bowl with a satisfied look on her face, rinsing her hands under the tap before reaching for the cling filmed package of fish she'd taken from the fridge._

 _"It's her favourite." she said again, watching Sherlock retrieve the rattle once more from the corner of her eye, her hands stalling on the film, "She throws it because she wants you to give it back."_

 _When Sherlock looked over, shooting Rosie a look when she dropped the rattle from her highchair yet again, Mary smiled softly at him._

 _"She wants you to play with her, Sherlock. She wants your attention."_

 _"So she has the intelligence of a dog." Sherlock grumbled, lifting the toy once more and waving it a little awkwardly in front of the baby's face to earn a gurgled laugh before placing it gently in her hand again._

 _John looked up, before glancing around to see his wife watching Sherlock and Rosie with a fond expression._

 _"She's not the one who keeps picking it up." he answered, lifting his newspaper a little higher than necessary to hide the smile he was wearing._

 _Sherlock deigned not to hear him._

The morning was only Day Number Nine, but Sherlock excused the fact that it wasn't a clean fortnight on the basis that Rosie would want her favourite rattle. After all, the book had most definitely said that familiar things were important.

He was only looking out for Rosie's best interests.


	4. Chapter 4

_His New Skull_

Molly came to the door without Rosie this time, poking first her head around the doorframe before smiling sadly and stepping out when she saw it was him.

"Hey, Sherlock." she said, her voice as soft as always and levelled with that sympathy he was seeing everywhere.

"Molly." he nodded, a conscious effort to be just as he always was.

They looked at each other for a moment before Molly sighed and looked down at her hands, wringing them together as though she were feeling uncomfortable. It was an personal tick that Sherlock had not seen her perform in well over a year. It didn't take him to work out what was causing it.

"Is she well?" he asked, his voice sounding unlike him to his own ears.

Molly's mouth smiled sweetly.

"She's well." she nodded. "John too."

Sherlock lowered his head, a short shake to one side.

"No, he isn't."

Molly bit her lip, looking towards the door of her flat.

"No, he isn't." she repeated softly. "He hasn't come to see her since Tuesday."

Sherlock blinked at her, her voice telling him that that was a significant fact.

"And today is…?"

Molly looked around at him, looking sad but not surprised.

"Friday."

"Ah." Sherlock said, a slow nod.

Molly shifted uncomfortably, Sherlock could see her fingers twitching as though she were preventing herself from rubbing her arms.

 _You're not allowed in._

 _You know you're not._

 _He doesn't want me to let you in._

Sherlock tried not to read what she was saying to him, but it wasn't something he could switch off. It never had been. He swallowed, looking at the door and wondering how he was supposed to stop the unwelcome, constant _ache_ in his chest.

"She's sleeping." Molly said quietly, without looking at him, "In the sitting room. Through the Hall on the left, by the kitchen."

Sherlock said nothing, and Molly seemed to brace herself for something, taking a deep, steady breath.

"Oh dear." she said, sounding very bland all of a sudden, "It was lovely seeing you, Sherlock, but I think I hear the phone."

Her eyes shot up, for the length of a heartbeat, to meet his before lowering to her feet once more.

"Take care." she added.

She let the moment hang between them before she turned and walked back into her flat, the door ajar behind her. H heard her tread upon the stairs.

Sherlock followed, barely able to keep himself in the slow pace he normally occupied. Molly's hallway was cosy and warm, photographs adorning the walls, photographs of her family, of Greg and John and Sherlock. Of Mary and Rosie. Sherlock didn't look at them. He found the sitting room where Molly said it would be.

And in the corner by the window, collecting the faint sunshine, was a familiar wooden cot. Sherlock strode over to touch the edge, fingers curling between the smooth painted bars as his gaze fell upon the occupant within.

Rosie was fast asleep, sunshine a buttery yellow on the pale pink of her cheek. Sherlock looked at her, an action he had found himself doing often since her birth, watching the gentle rise of her chest as she breathed, the fluttering of her eyelids as she traversed REM sleep. She had on a sleep suit Sherlock had never seen, an apple shade that he knew someone sentimental would say brightened the blue of her eyes. She had Mary's eyes, sharp and focused, as far as babies went. Her nose ended in John's gentle curve, her lips a bow Sherlock had seen on Harry's mouth. Her cheeks were her own, round and plump. At her side her fingers twitched, rubbing against the gentle velour of her stuffed rabbit.

"Hello Rosie." he murmured, making an automatic effort to soften the natural rumble of his voice. Molly had yet to come back downstairs. "I've missed you."

 _"It's like talking to an unenlightening bag of flesh and smells." Sherlock grumbled, eying a newborn Rosie in her moses basket as he dropped into his armchair._

 _"You used to talk to a skull." John answered without looking up from the sheaf of papers in his lap, "She's at least a step up from that."_

 _Sherlock huffed, throwing his arms unnecessarily over the sides of his seat and letting his head fall backwards so that he could see the ceiling. their current case made little sense, puzzle pieces that didn't fit quite right scattered in each of their case files. The seams were wonky, and Sherlock knew there was a pattern he was't seeing yet, needing one more piece uncovered before he could find the thread to sew it together. It had been a week of this, and Sherlock only had so much patience._

 _"The skull was helpful in apprehending criminals." he muttered. "She's no help at all."_

 _John only made that amused sound of his, glancing over at his partner from under his brow._

 _"She is only weeks old, Sherlock. Give her time to collect dust, yeah?"_

 _Sherlock frowned at him, opening his mouth to point out that living creatures by definition don't lay still long enough to collect any significant amount of dust, before the quirk of John's lips told him not to._ _He groaned instead and blew hair from his eyes, staring at a familiar old stain in the corner of the ceiling._

 _"She needs intensive training." he pointed out some time later, finally looking over at his flatmate._

 _John was no longer in his new chair, and nor was Rosie in her basket. For a heartbeat, Sherlock Holmes felt a shiver of something perhaps comparable to alarm, before he heard Mary's low voice in the kitchen. When he got up under the pretence of making tea he found them at the table, Mary with a wakened baby in her arms, bottle propped against her lips as she tried to coax the babe into drinking it._

 _Her hair hadn't been brushed, her make-up under her eyes hiding dark circles betrayed by smudges near her nose. The shirt she was wearing was crooked at the collar and her cardigan pockets were full of buttons and thread, tissues and papers. Mary was tired. Not a surprise, considering the odd hours that her child deigned to keep._

 _She looked up as Sherlock walked in._

 _"Ahh. Come back again, have you?" she smiled, raising one eyebrow in her expertly curious manner._

 _"Hm." Sherlock hummed, his eye drawn to the tiny but growing form in her arms._

 _"She won't take it." Mary sighed, sounding vaguely amused. "She's as stubborn as her dad."_

 _"As stubborn as you."_

 _Mary chuckled and flashed him a grin._

 _"God help us." she said, and Sherlock laughed as he took the seat across from her._

 _He watched for several moments, listening in faint bemusement as she talked at length to the child, of the woman who was in front of her in the queue at the shop, of the dog she saw crossing the road on the way home. Sherlock knew the baby, however bright, was unable to comprehend any of what she was being informed, and so concluded that the action was as pointless as he had proclaimed to John whenever ago they had spoken in the living room._

 _"John said you're looking for a replacement skull." Mary said, suddenly talking to Sherlock once more, "He not working out for you?"_

 _"We were discussing training Rosalund for the position." He smiled at Mary when she looked his way, "Perhaps she'll outshine him."_

 _"You want to train her to be a skull." Mary repeated, muffling a laugh so as not to jostle her cargo._

 _"John suggested I talk through theories with her. I'm of the opinion that she won't be any help."_

 _Mary smiled again, working the teat of the bottle across Rosie's bottom lip hopefully._

 _"You shouldn't knock it till you've tried it," he teased, "You must have tried the skull for the first time, once."_

 _"Hm." Sherlock said again._

 _They sat in a companionable quiet for a few moments, Mary's soft sighing and Rosie's mumbling baby sounds comfortable in the kitchen air._

 _"Here." she said suddenly, getting up and stretching carefully before walking around to his side, "You try."_

 _Sherlock shook his head but wasn't quite feast enough, Mary pressing the bundle into his hands almost commandingly._

 _"Mary, I-"_

 _"Please, Sherlock. I'd like to be able to use the bathroom without company, hm?"_

 _Sherlock frowned, fumbling as his hands adjusted, clumsy and unused to the uneven weight and squishiness of the child._

 _"Mary-"_

 _"Half an hour, Sherlock, that's all I ask." she smiled, eyebrows high and eyes pleading, "I_ really _need a bath."_

 _Sherlock swallowed further argument, gazing down at the swaddled child reluctantly._

 _"If I must."_

 _Rosie blinked colourful periwinkle eyes at him and said nothing._

 _"You're a godsend, Sherlock." Mary answered him, pressing a kiss to the curl of his fringe and setting the bottle on the table before moving eagerly towards the door."_

 _She paused on the threshold, turning back to look at them fondly._

 _"Don't worry too much if she won't drink anything. Fussiest kid I've ever met."_

 _Sherlock snorted, meeting her eye wryly. In return she only smiled brightly, her eyes glittering in amusement._

 _"You should try your theories out on her." she advised, turning away towards the bathroom, "You might be surprised."_

 _She needn't know that he had indeed, in the end, waiting until he heard the bathroom door lock click, the turning of the tap making the boiler purr. He picked up the bottle, holding it at an angle as he had seen Mary do. The baby blinked up at him, a soft breathy sound escaping her small mouth._

 _"Well, Rosie. Let's see if you're as helpful as your parents."_

 _Thirty seconds later he had her suckling on her dinner and gazing up at him, enraptured as he began to sort the clues into a sensible order out loud, explaining references and filling in necessary background._


	5. Chapter 5

_Would it be Better?_

The babe snuffled, turning her face towards his voice and releasing a gentle mewl against her pacifier. Sherlock reached down with one hand, brushing the back of his fingers against her warm cheek.

"Rosie Posy." he murmured gently.

She gave a deep sighing sound and then drew it back in as a yawn, her eyelids fluttering as crescent moons of blue became visible beneath. Sherlock watched her, feeling the edge of that ache curb just a little. Enough to breathe. She stirred, babbling and stretching and moving each limb as though testing they were there before his eyes were open once more, finding Sherlock easily.

"Hello, Rosie."

In return the baby smiled around the pacifier in her mouth, making a gurgled sound Sherlock recognised as designated to him. When the Watsons had brought her home from the hospital, Sherlock hadn't given a thought to holding her, something that anyone would believe would never happen. They had tried to push her on him often and he had avoided it at every opportunity until that first time Mary had made him, left him to talk to his new, living skull while she went for a much-dreamed-of peaceful bath.

And after, when she'd finished and Sherlock was still sitting with Rosie in the crook of his arm and his baritone mellow and low as he talked through their case, Mary had left him to put her to bed too. Sherlock hadn't become a fan of children over-night, nor anything of the sort. But if John and Mary noticed his arguments against holding their child grew less and less vehement as the months went on, then they never said a word.

Mycroft on the other hand? Well, his infuriating older brother brought it up as often as he possibly could, sometimes sitting outside 221b in one of his many identical black cars just to do so, fobbing off Mrs Hudson's attempts to shoo him until John sent Sherlock down to tell him to bugger off.

Sherlock still rarely lifted her of his own volition, preferring to talk to her while she lay in her moses basket or her crib, on her playmat when she grew enough to hold herself up, to crawl. He would scold her mildly in amusement when she crawled over to touch the velvet of his slippers, a habit that remained strong until one day the velour rabbit appeared in her cot with her, much to John's momentary confusion and Mary's gleeful amusement.

A chubby hand reached for his sleeve with clumsy fingers and a grip he knew could hurt. He bent over the side to tuck his hands under arms. She made pleased noises as she rose into the air, her face turning to peer up at him as he tucked her into the crook of his arm. He hooked an index finger through the hoop of the pacifier, giving a coaxing tug to request she give it up. Her brow furrowed as she tugged back, but then she relaxed her grip and let go with a round _pop!_

Instead, she reached to curl one hand around his fingers, trying to scowl when she found the hand now magically empty, the object tucked safely in Sherlock's clean coat pocket. The one he now never put unpleasant things in.

Not strictly for the purpose of storing Rosie's things, naturally. Just a happy coincidence, he told anyone who might comment. Namely, his brother.

 _"What is it you are always saying of coincidences, brother dear?" Mycroft would quip, pretending to look thoughtful and leaning on his ever-present umbrella._

 _"Shut up."_

 _"Ahh, yes."_

 _The insolent, wicked little smile._

 _"The universe is rarely so lazy, Sherlock."_

"Not now, Rosie. You know your mother want…ed you to stop relying on the useless thing."

Rosie pouted, azure eyes round and liquid. But Sherlock shook his head gently, leaning down ever so slightly.

"Rosie." he asked firmly.

Rosie blew out her cheeks and made a hiccuping noise before releasing a loud and amused squeal, tugging Sherlock's hand up and trying to bite his fingers. Sherlock chuckled, moving them to a nearby chair, sitting her upon his knee with one arm as he watched her gum his fingers and look at him.

"Oh, Rosie." Sherlock sighed, suddenly filled again with that ache as Rosie's eyes, _Mary's_ eyes, blinked trustingly up at him.

He removed his fingers from her mouth to brush a feather-light sandy strand of hair from her head, the end trailing to almost tuck behind her ear. She was growing so very fast. It was confusing to see, for Sherlock had mapped out the averages for everything of a child, from holding her own head up to walking, forming articulate sentences and coordinating shoelaces. But still the time somehow managed to catch him unawares, as he looked at her and wondered where it had gone while simultaneously knowing exactly.

It was an exhausting conundrum that made no sense at all.

"Bnewif." Rosie burbled, ending by blowing a bubble.

"If you were old enough to understand why you're here, would it be better?" he asked her, as though she could answer, "Or is it best that you won't remember her? Sentiment has never been my area of expertise." he confided, "Rather the opposite. If you were old enough to know her and who she was, would it be worth how much you would hurt?"

Rosie only gave him a garbled laugh in response, her eyes lighting up with her own unknown humour as use laughed at him and grasped for her own feet. Sherlock felt it, then. That deep and frightening loss of direction. Of responsibility without the preparation or experience to meet it. He listened to her as she began to babble, clearly telling him something and wondering as always if she knew what she meant. It was something that would ordinarily fascinate him, not that anyone would know that.

But now? Now it only fed the sad ache in his chest and left him wondering what other pains were to come.

"Where has your father gotten to, hm, Rosie?"

She looked at him at the sound of her name, eyes rapt and paying attention. Something Mary had teased John mercilessly about, considering how the child utterly distracted herself whenever her dad was speaking to her.

"Three days." he mused, his eyes wandering the room absently as he turned the information over in his mind. "Where would he go for that length of time? Surely not to Harry. Family or no, she's no good for him when he's not himself."

"AAhyypff." Rosie told him brightly, her mouth open in a wide smile as she blinked at him and awaited his opinion of her idea.

"Perhaps." Sherlock said, frowning. "But why?"

Rosie put her thumb in her mouth and blinked silently at him, as clear a sign as any that she didn't know either. Sherlock blew his fringe from his eyes, smiling wanly when Rosie gave a screech of laughter and rocked back, one hand clutching her feet together.

"You've proven far more helpful than I initially predicted." he told her seriously, the smile on his lips gaining solidity when her eyes grew lidded and pleased. "Don't let it go to your head." he added quickly as a tease, and whether she understood the words or not didn't seem to matter because she giggled anyway.

Molly didn't come through while Sherlock was there, even when he was sure he'd heard her in the adjoining kitchen, and when Sherlock took the baby through to the kitchen with him in search of a bottle hours later she wasn't there, nothing but the lingering scent of fresh perfume to indicate she was even in the flat.

In total, Sherlock stayed six hours. During that time he spoke to Rosie, telling her of the case he'd solved days prior, extravagantly detailing the ways in which he'd put puzzle pieces together, waving his arms every now and then to earn a whoop of hiccuping laughter. He humoured her penchant for adults animating her toys, walking her velour rabbit across his knee to hers, performing bows and ear-cocks all the while speaking in a gruff and grumbly voice that enchanted her.

By the time he was gone Rosie had been fed and changed and nestled back in her crib with that velour rabbit and a kiss upon her sleeping forehead.

But only because there had been no-one else in the room to kiss her goodnight.


	6. Chapter 6

_Spaghetti_

The next time? Sherlock was away fifteen hours before he was standing on Molly's front step once more.

"He hasn't come by." she said by way of greeting as she opened the door, and Sherlock didn't need to look to see the worry taking root on her face.

"He will."

"Sherlock…" Molly stopped herself, looking at him instead with those doe eyes.

 _What if he doesn't?_

"He will, Molly. I know he will."

 _How can you know? How can you possibly know? What if he_ ** _doesn't_** _?_

"Is she awake?" Sherlock asked instead, looking at her expectantly.

He had spent the sleeping hours working over a problem in a case he'd told Lestrade three days ago he wouldn't take, wearing his own patience down and sitting on the front steps of the Watson Wing with Rosie's rattle in his hands, turning it over and over the hear the gentle clicking sound, the beads inside striking each other.

So he was not, perhaps, in the politest of moods.

Molly's shoulders slumped and she looked down at her feet. This was becoming a habit, one Sherlock was not sure he would put up with for the whole duration of John's… absence.

"You _know_ he-"

"In the sitting room again?" he asked, smiling cheerfully and tipping his head drastically to one side as he clapped his hands together. "Excellent."

"She's in the front." Molly called after him as he brushed past her, "In her high chair. It's lunch time."

"Wonderful!" he called back, veering to the right through the open door and out of sight, "Just tea for me."

Molly bit back her sigh, unable to stop herself from glancing up and down the street as though to check for John, to check for anyone who knew what she was doing. What she was allowing to happen despite John's strict instruction.

She took her time making his tea, turning the radio on down low as she went through the familiar movements, listening to the sound of his voice rumble through from the front room.

Molly Hooper was no fool. And nor was she blind.

Self-proclaimed sociopath or not, Sherlock Holmes had a soft spot for that child. A soft spot that even rivalled that which she'd seen in others. For the man who built his life on being a brain, he sure had some heart on him. Quite a lot, in fact, when it came to the Watsons. They'd gotten under his skin, one way and another, and Molly saw it plain as day. Whether Sherlock saw it or not was another matter, but it was there.

As she stirred Rosie's hooped spaghetti in its pot she listened to him. To them; Sherlock's lovely low baritone and Rosie's sweet laughter, her enthusiastic babbled language as she answered him, as she queried him and told stories of her own. She was beginning to grasp at language, at the younger age of the average of course. Not surprising when one considered her lineage, and her godfather.

If the child wasn't solving murders by seven, Molly would eat her coat.

She spooned the spaghetti into a small bowl and sat it aside to cool, standing by the doorframe to listen.

"How many times?" he said, his voice going soft and fond around the edges without him meaning to, "If you want to keep the rattle, you do not throw the rattle."

In response there was nothing but a gurgled laugh and then, unless Molly's ears were deceiving her, a soft exhalation from Sherlock himself that sounded an awful lot like amusement. Molly smiled to herself, setting milk back in the door of the fridge and placing both cups and Rosie's bowl, and a plate of digestives - should she manage to trick Sherlock into eating - on a tray she owned quite frankly only because it was useful to bring tea and biscuits to John and Sherlock when they visited. A sorrowful feeling curled around her arms, causing the tray to rumble and the china to tinkle.

And Mary. Mary had been there with her the day it had been purchased. She and Molly had shared a fondness for the kittens painted on the polished metal in pastel brushstrokes. Molly paused in the hall outside the living room doorway to collect herself, focusing on the comfortable murmurs she could hear to cover up the welling grief.

Despite what she may think, she could understand John's anger with the way his world was structured right now. He was in pain. And whether or not he truly believed it was Sherlock he was angry at, Molly knew it wasn't really true. Sherlock was just… too close. He was so far from emotionally available that it circled around again. John was afraid of the closeness they shared. She knew he just wasn't ready to face the man who'd been an arguably larger part of his life than Mary, and for longer too.

But as much as she could understand, Molly also felt a residual sort of anger at him. Because he wasn't the only one who'd lost her. Of course his loss was greater, and Molly would never dare to think otherwise. But they had all lost her. Rosie'd lost her mother. Molly'd lost her friend. And Sherlock… Sherlock had lost someone dear to him, someone who helped him keep John safe and well and happy, someone who matched him in wit even only marginally. For a normal person that may not have been such a deep wound, but for Sherlock?

Sherlock liked to let them think he allowed no-one in. That was his way of life. But he'd let Mary in. And now she was dead.

Molly took a bracing breath and tried to force a smile onto her face. She focused on the sound of Rosie's laugh, allowing it to buoy her. Sherlock read her like a book, of course, always had done. He'd know as soon as she walked through that door what she was thinking, what she was feeling drag at her heart. She looked at the tray in her hands and stilled the tremble by sheer will.

She could do this. Of course she could do this. She was Molly bloody Hooper, she could do anything. Mary had said it to her once, and she had liked the sound of it. It made her smile.

Molly bloody Hooper indeed.

"Okay, Rosie." she announced brightly as she stepped into the sitting room, "Time for lunch!"

When she looked up Rosie wasn't in her highchair, instead occupying the crook of Sherlock's arm, her hands reaching for the velour rabbit held inches from her by his free hand. She was smiling as she made those babbled talking sounds, her eyes bright and dashing in the sunshine streaming through the window. Her hair, what modest amount she currently had, was blonde and wispy like her mother's, curling angelically around her ears and her brow and lending her face further sweetness.

Sherlock looked up when Molly came in, and he gave her a smile.

"I must apologise for my atttude earlier, Molly." he said by way of greeting, "I was a little… wound up."

"Oh." Molly replied, moving to set the tray down by the armchairs, "Uhm, that's okay, Sherlock really."

When she met his eyes again, she knew he saw the rest.

 _We're all under a lot of pressure. It's to be expected._

His smile was warming and gentle, his eyes drawn back to the child.

"Lunch time, Rosie." he said softly, and Molly couldn't miss the way the little girl gave up on the rabbit when he spoke, as though already trained to follow his every instruction.

Which she supposed Rosie really was.

"Time to make a mess of Auntie Molly's carpets with spaghetti now, hm?"

Molly smiled as she watched him place Rosie so very carefully into her chair once more. Something fragile clutched desperately inside of Molly, almost making her sad. Sherlock was so wonderful with the baby. It had taken so many people by surprise and yet it shouldn't have at all, because if Sherlock Holmes was one thing, that one thing was exceptional.

In response, Rosie only giggled.


End file.
